


Candle Flame

by EdilMayHampsen



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Gen, Happy ending though, Horror, The core - Freeform, Two robot nbys? What else could you want, Worldbuilding, a bit. also a bit of, but not too much. just be warned, this one aint that happy! Beware!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29929983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdilMayHampsen/pseuds/EdilMayHampsen
Summary: I didn't tell anyone I was leaving when I set out for that place. It wasn't intentional, just another morning stroll I took like I did every morning to test which parts of me I'd need to be careful with that day, or what patches of tape needed replacing. I just didn't come home like I'd planned to.The core puts you where it wants you. It doesn't have much will, it certainly isn't orchestrating any grand plans, but it isn't completely dead. But it does have one thing that anyone who's lived in it's walls for more than a could of years could tell you: It has a will to live.
Relationships: Gia Holbrook & Mira Lemma
Kudos: 1





	Candle Flame

**Author's Note:**

> TWs for:  
> -mention of death and suicidal ideation  
> -slight (mechanical) body horror  
> -mild starvation  
> -isolation

I didn't tell anyone I was leaving when I set out for that place. It wasn't intentional, just another morning stroll I took like I did every morning to test which parts of me I'd need to be careful with that day, or what patches of tape needed replacing. I just didn't come home like I'd planned to.

The core puts you where it wants you. It doesn't have much will, it certainly isn't orchestrating any grand plans, but it isn't completely dead. Though the word dead suggests it was once living — the core, it isn't inanimate, it just likes to take really, really long naps.

But the core does have one thing that anyone who's lived in it's aching walls for more than a could of years could tell you — I say aching because the way the pipes creak sounds like keening, some nights — It has a will to live. It wants to continue. 

Maybe I'm a sap because I know what it feels like to be falling apart, to wake up in the morning and see my metal solar-plexus has detached again, to not be able to trust the physical reflection of myself in the world. Maybe that's why the core chose me. Maybe it knew. 

So on my walk when I turned the corner down towards the coffee center — not really a shop cause you don't pay for anything, that's not how it works here — I kicked the piece of sheet metal on the ground there I always kick cause it sounds pretty. But instead of just wobbling and ringing and fading into nothing a crack appeared in the rock wall, a big groaning as it pulled apart to show me this huge, dark tunnel. 

What was I supposed to do? I don't know if I'd call the core my friend, but it is my home, and it was asking for my help. I could feel it reverberating up through my ankle bones — which were stiff that morning, so it was this uncomfortable pressure to just move, just do something. I couldn't leave it to suffer. 

But I didn't think to take my phone out of my pocket and tell someone where I was going. I should've texted Lady. She'd have talked me out of it. 

No. No that's a lie. I'm too stubborn for my own good and we both know it. She wouldn't have tried. 

So I went down, and I couldn't see. It was this oppressive blackness so devoid of light I wondered if I'd gone blind. I knew that wasn't how it worked, but I still thought it. It was heavy. If not for the cold stone beneath my feet I would've just given up on hope that I was anywhere in particular, anywhere but nowhere in the depths of this darkness. 

I grew up in the core, you know. I was born here. I remember something I used to tell myself a lot back when my legs were really short and every distance felt like forever to walk. There were options, but generally its best to let children build up that muscle strength. It didn't work out that way for me, but the idea was there. I remember every time my feet began to ache and I'd look up at whatever grown-up was leading me where we needed to go and I'd think 'how is this ever going to end? How are we gonna get through this?' I'd remind myself of that one factiod I'd heard, about how the human eye can see a single candle flame from a whole mile away. I'd tell myself the light at the end of the tunnel doesn't always tell you how far it is, but you know it's there, so you have to keep moving. The only other option would be to lay down and die. I've had plenty of opportunity to do that, I've had practice resisting the urge. Those tunnels were dark, and cold, and damp, and utterly silent, but they would not get the best of me.

So when the sliver of blue light showed up I nearly cried with relief. I scrambled towards it and it wasn't a near thing, it was so, so far, but I went there. And I pried the rock away from the wall with fingers that were starting to crumble and opened up into this enchanting space. 

The whole room softly vibrated, not fast enough to play a tone, but enough that if you really focused you could kind of hear it. It was this subtle shaking in the ground. And the walls were covered in purple and blue crystals, gemstones I didn't recognize but they were beautiful. White light radiated through the walls and through the crystals and lit the space in this soft glow. 

Then I heard a clamor in the corner. The familiar rattling of a small object bouncing down a chute. It hit the floor with a thud. A roll of duct tape. That's how I knew the core knew who I was. Who else needs tape like biological humans need water? I crawled over to it, leaving a few screws behind I could get to later, and spent a while patching myself up. Then I picked up my scrap and put each bit back in its place. It doesn't hurt, it never hurts. Well, maybe my ego left in need of it's own patching up. But that's it.

I stood and looked around. There was a panel sticking up out of the floor in the middle of the room. I walked over to it. It was the size and shape of a speaker’s podium, but instead of a flat surface for notecards it opened up to reveal a gearbox full of tiny levers and spinning pieces. I’m a minority among the mechanics, in that I genuinely specialize in mechanisms. They call me people in my profession, clockwork mechanics, and I wear the title with pride. I knew what was wrong as soon as I opened the gearbox. Half of the setup wasn’t even spinning, a piece of scrap metal that had fallen from the dented doors of the gearbox jammed the bottleneck of power between the engine and the first gear. It made a horrible grating sound as the engine tried it’s hardest to push, bending the tooth of the next gear. I flipped it off, removed the piece of scrap, and repeated the process with every obstruction I found. Once the whole deal got spinning, I smiled to myself in satisfaction. I thought it was over. 

The room began to hum, really hum, now. Standing there was like standing on a massage chair turned up to one hundred, it wasn’t rocking, not throwing me off my feet, by a deep and constant vibration. The melody the room sang was enchanting, and upon closer inspection, I noticed different kinds of crystals hummed different notes, to form this slow and lulling tune. I was sure i’d never heard it before, I couldn’t place it, and yet it was familiar. Maybe before this place broke it echoed up through the pipes, maybe I’d walked past that pipe as a child. Probably not.

And as I stood there, reveling in the glory of a job well done, the natural high any good mechanic gets when they fix-it as we’re meant to do, a crack sounded across from me. I ran over to it. A piece of lapis lazuli had fallen from the ceiling and landed on another crystal, chipping it. I could hear more cracks beginning around me, It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Starting up that panel was not a good choice. I raced back over to it and flipped off the engine’s switch. That was two problems averted: No breaking gears, and no cracking rock. I had done it. 

I had once again, foolishly, thought I had finished my task. I turned back to the wall where I had entered, pushing against the rock that sealed the entryway. It didn’t budge. 

“Uh, Core, buddy? Should I Call you The Core, Ind. Core, Mx. Core?” It didn’t reply, of course, so I kept nervously rambling. “Do you even have a concept of gender? You’ve been around since, well, ages ago. No offense. Not that I think that being old is bad but— you know. You plan to let me out? Please.” 

The Core did not reply. 

“Please?” 

~~~~~

I fell asleep on the cold, crystalline floors after trying my phone and realizing here was no service through this much rock. I spent a while just staring at the wall, waiting for something to happen, waiting to see if I was still needed or if this was some kind of trap set out for me by The Core, or someone else entirely. The core wasn’t supposed to be malicious, it wasn’t supposed to try and hurt you, but this would fit all too well into that category. If things had changed I’d just made a very important, and very morbid discovery. And it wouldn’t count for anything if I died here. 

I only woke up the next morning, afternoon, whatever span of time that passed that had left me still groggy from sleep, when I heard more rattling of something coming down the chute. Another roll of tape and some granola. I don’t get hungry often, I’m not very biological, but I still need to eat. My brain desperately needs the nutrients. I wolfed the food down, and retaped myself together. Then I stood, remembered the candle, however far away it may be, and once again resolved to continue. I did a sweep of the room, something they teach you in mech school where they make you fill out these little charts to see what’s changed and what stayed the same as the first step of problem solving. Stayed the same: Crystals had stopped shattering, and the humming returned to barely audible. Changed: brown-black sports had begun to start in the crystal’s structure, impurities that had slowly spread over night. I saw it and I wanted to cry. 

If running the machine cracked the crystals and turning it off corrupted them, the only solution was a balance. To flicker back and forth. I kept the switch running until I heard cracks and then turned it off until I got a foreboding feeling. In my down time I studied the room. Still no way out, but the impurities were receding ever so slightly. 

The trouble came when I needed to sleep. I figured if the impurities could go away over time but I didn’t have crystal glue to stop the cracking, turning it off over night was the obvious option. That’s what I did the first night. I once again woke up to breakfast and a roll of tape, and spent my time pacing the room, searching for a way out. When that got tiring, I harmonized with the music of the core. 

_ Stuck down here, all the way down, _ _   
_ _ I’m all the way down, with nowhere to go _ _   
_ _ Buried under, under the floor _ _   
_ _ I might not make it home _

Repeating the tune made my situation feel less depressing, as if I was a hero in some story with a tragic ending that history had stripped all the sadness from. 

_ Stuck down here, all the way down, _ _   
_ _ I’m all the way down, and nobody knows _ _   
_ _ Buried under, under the floor _ _   
_ _ And soon I’ll be just bone _

It didn’t matter that I didn’t actually have bones, the thought was there. 

The next night it was harder to sleep. The paranoia kept getting to me. I shook awake from vague nightmares where I’d find myself crushed under the falling rocks or suffocating in the black gas the crystals in my dream released once fully corrupted. I kept waking up and flipping the switch. 

_ Stuck down here, all the way down _ _   
_ _ I’m all the way down, oh no _

I started sleeping less, stopped feeling so hungry for the breakfast The Core would drop down that goddamned chute for me. 

The corruption kept spreading, the crystals kept cracking, there was no set amount of time to run or idle the machine for and I tried, I tried so hard, but it kept collapsing, and I could never rest.

I was bent over double, hands on the panel, trying to suppress a wave of dizziness from low blood pressure, when the crystal started cracking. Just a faint sound, one that meant — that usually meant — I had five minutes to hit the switch before the stalactites started falling. The chunk above me fell within five seconds. If not for the sound it made, loud enough to warn me to throw myself in whatever direction I could— Which happened to be backwards — It would’ve crushed me. 

I sat on the floor breathing hard, my hand on my chest as the room echoed with snaps and cracks and blood-curdling scraping and I gave up. I gave up cause no matter how much I thought of the candle at the end of the tunnel that I just had to get within a mile’s distance to see, laying down to die felt so much easier. It felt like the only option. For the first time Since entering that cave, I did cry. 

~~~~~~

“Mira? Mira Lemma?” 

The voice snapped me out of my stupor. The room had only grown louder, rock collapsing around me. I didn’t hear how xe came in, only when xe did. I recognized Gia from the team. We didn’t talk, it’s not like xe was my friend, but we all have day jobs. 

“My name is Gia Holbrook and I have arrived on behalf of D.O.W.N. I am searching for Mira Lemma. Mira? Mira, are you there?” 

I raised my chin to speak but managed only a sob of biting relief. Xe found me quickly, cold metal fingers landing on my shoulder. To be touched by another person after isolation like that felt like what the ancient greeks must have believed ambrosia tasted like. Intense enough to cleave me through the core. I pulled away from her. 

Gia squatted in front of me and focused xeir optics on my face. “You have been down here a long time.” Xe noted. “You were last seen two week ago.”

I didn’t know what to do so I just nodded while xe caught me up on everything I missed. Lady was worried for me but I got fixated on projects sometimes so it wasn’t unlikely I’d forget to leave the house or text back. But the team knew something was up when I missed a practice and they called D.O.W.N. 

Did you know we have a whole department for people who get lured away by The Core? It’s not something they tell you, for some reason, not because D.O.W.N keeps dangerous secrets but because we all get so swaddled in the safety blanket of our mechanical society that we forget our world doesn’t care for us like we care for each other. The Core is not my Home but the place my Home was built on, and it wants to survive but who in their right mind would sacrifice themselves so that a single organ in ancient being that hardly cares enough to get more than one person on the job, can continue to exist for two weeks longer. That’s the narrative Gia fed me. It helped put things in perspective, but the professional way xe ran through the words like a speech xe’d given a hundred times made my mind tune out. I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful xe was. Not in the romantic way but in the way an angel might be beautiful, or a savior, which feels kind of like the way a child is overwhelmingly beautiful in all their potential for good, but with none of the dread that come with knowing they’ll have to suffer through times searching for the candle in the distance, like we all have to search. There was no feeling of promising myself that the candle would be there when I couldn’t actually be sure. Because it was here. Gia was here. Gia was beautiful. And xe’d saved me. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
